“GIVE ME THAT
OLD-TIME RELIGION”
You
have probably heard it said, “I don’t have a religion, I have a relationship
with Jesus Christ.” I don’t know who started this saying but these things have
a way of going beyond their intended meanings. This particular saying has
become the standard mantra of the true believer: “I don’t have a religion; I
have a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
A popular video on Youtube by
Jefferson Bethke is entitled “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus.” In this
video, Jefferson raps (yes, raps) about how religion is about being fake, about
keeping appearances but having no heart for Jesus, about facades and rules and
legalism. He declares that Jesus hated religion in his day and condemned those
who made religion into a way of enslaving people.
I personally find it quite
presumptuous for Jefferson to say that Jesus hates religion. Yes, if religion
is empty ritual and meaningless liturgy all for show, then Jesus probably hates
it. If religion is about hair-splitting over theological disagreements, then
Jesus probably hates religion. Jesus was certainly disgusted with the Pharisees
who washed the outside of the cup but not the inside; he called them
whitewashed tombs – nice on the outside but rotting corpses on the inside. Yes,
that kind of religion is what turns people off.
But when James wrote his pastoral
letter and used the word “religion” he had a different meaning in mind. Religion,
in James’ letter, is the external manifestation of inner spirituality. Or to
put it another way, religion is outward expression of the inner
heart-relationship we have with God. So when you say you don’t have a religion
but a relationship with Jesus, you are saying that you have no way of
expressing how you feel about Jesus.
Earlier in the letter, James
exhorted his readers not to merely listen to the word but to do what it says
also. Doing what the word says is our religion. So doing what the word says
includes caring for the helpless as well as living a pure life.
Let’s see what James means by this
religion thing.
1.
Good Religion keeps a rein on your tongue
You
will notice from our main text that religion has two effects: 1) practical
compassion on the helpless, and 2) personal purity of life. What typically has
happened in the history of the church is that we have tended to lean to one or
the other, but not both at the same time. Either we have leaned toward social
justice or emphasized personal holiness.
As one writer illustrated,
Christians are riding a horse and we are apt to fall off on one side or the
other. We need to stay on the horse and marry social justice to personal
holiness. We need to both care about sexual purity, financial integrity, a
clean thought life AND have a heart for the poor and the helpless.
Now we go back to a verse we have
covered before to continue the point: “Those
who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their
tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless,” (1:26).
The reason we go back to this verse
in connection with religion is that the critics of religion note one thing
above all else in their hatred of religion – the Christian’s mouth. It is from
the Christian’s mouth that trouble comes. As the Indians used to say in the Old
Western movies, “White man speak with forked tongue.”
We all have need of controlling our
tongue better, don’t we? One woman said to another: "I can’t go into all
the details, darling. I’ve already told you more than I heard myself."
What proceeds from the mouth of the
Christian, the religious critic claims, are so many rules for being a Christian
that true relationship with God is swallowed up in legalism. And then we don’t
always live up to the rules we have created.
It was once said that if a person
stopped swearing, drinking and hanging around the pool hall that he must have
gotten religion. This image of a religious person has stuck so hard that if you
hear a Christian use a foul word we, and the world, assumes that this person
has slipped in their faith. Then the world says, “there’s your hypocrite,”
because we don’t live up to the standard of our own rules of what a Christian
is.
Are they right or wrong? Yes. If we
have made up rules for what a Christian is supposed to look like with our
tongue and fail to live up to those rules they are right. However, that little
appendage needs to be controlled for the sake of our testimony to what we truly
believe: that a relationship with Jesus Christ changes us little by little
through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit each and every day to look and
sound and be like Jesus. So in that way the critics are wrong – rules are not
the essence of our religion, our heart-relationship with Jesus is.
So we need to pray like the
Psalmist, “I will watch my ways and keep
my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are
in my presence,” (Ps 39:1).
2.
Good Religion cares for the helpless
If
with our tongues we declare that Jesus is a caring and compassionate Lord, then
the critics will want to see evidence of this in the Jesus people. Good
religion cares for the helpless.
James writes, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to
look after orphans and widows in their distress…” (1:27a). Some
translations have the word “visit” instead of “look after.” The sense is that
there will be a “continual and persistent ministry” with the helpless.
God has a particular passion for the
orphan and the widow. They were considered helpless in a world where if the man
as the bread-winner died the wife became destitute. She might have to sell
herself and her child into slavery to live. God
had special laws to assist the poor. In Deuteronomy we read that God “defends the cause of the fatherless and the
widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing,” (10:18). And God
commanded, “When you are harvesting in
your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the
alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in
all the work of your hands,” (24:19). One of the sins that led to Israel’s
destruction was their neglect of the helpless ones.
God’s rebuke of Israel’s religious
fasting revealed the difference between His heart and theirs (Isaiah 58:6-9).
a) Who are the
orphans?
Times have changed. Orphans and widows do not glean empty fields. We don’t have
orphanages; we have a foster system. Single women can find work easily in our
culture (easier). So who are the orphans?
The helpless are typically those who
cannot speak for themselves. God wants us to be concerned about orphans because
they are helpless without mommy and daddy. If mommy and daddy are killed in a
car accident leaving a three-year old toddler bruised but alive, and if she has
no relatives to care for her, then God says the church should look after her.
Abortion puts a child in a worse
situation. The parents are not dead, but have turned on the child and choose to
have the child dead. This is worse than being an orphan. To have mommy and
daddy choose to have you dead is worse than mommy and daddy being dead. So if
God wants us to care for the helpless, voiceless ones, it is pretty clear that
the child whose life is in danger, even in the womb, is the critical concern of
the person who says, “I love Jesus.” Because if you love Jesus you have his
concerns at heart and He is the reason we believe that all life is precious
because he created all life.
This is one example.
b) When are
widows helpless?
Perhaps we should define who a widow is as well. Yes, a woman who has lost her
husband is a widow, even today. If we think, however, of the definition of
helplessness and voicelessness, we have to broaden our definition to include
the divorced woman, the woman who had an abortion, and the woman who was forced
by circumstance to sell herself, to name a few. When religion goes bad these
are the women who are left feeling as outcasts in the church. Religion that God
our Father accepts as pure and faultless is a religion that shows compassion
and love on these women also.
These women fall under the umbrella
of good religion as the objects of our visits and care. Jesus leaves us with
very little wiggle room when he talks about whom he accepts as his own in
Matthew 25. There he talks about separating the sheep and the goats. Who are
the sheep who get to go to heaven? Jesus said, “I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to
visit me,” (25:36). The sheep are those who treated every person as if they
were Jesus himself, especially the poor and unwanted.
Someone has said it like this: “We
are never closer to the heart of God then when we care for orphans and widows.”
Conversely, you can learn a lot about someone by the way they treat children
and the elderly. James is saying you can tell if Jesus is first in someone’s
life by whether or not they care for orphans and widows. If I say I value
Christ, than I must value what He values. And Since Jesus values the most
vulnerable, I must value the most vulnerable.
3.
Good Religion is concerned about clean living
Religion
seems to some people to be just a bunch of rules. Well guess what? There are
rules for everything in life. Without rules there would be chaos. If religion
is the outward expression of what’s in our hearts, then we will agree to some
extent on what that looks like.
I think sometimes what the world
wants is for us to have our faith but look like the rest of the world, to not
stand out too much, and maybe not make them feel guilty about their own
lifestyles. Talking “religion” to these folks is like asking them to “give up”
or “change” their lives, and they don’t want to change. That’s why a
relationship is less restricting than a religion. Ironically, relationships
need rules and require change also.
What the world would like us to do
is accept their values and live by their standards. James wrote that this
exactly what we should not do in no uncertain terms. “…and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” (1:27b).
We are to guard against being
defiled or contaminated by world values. That is not to say that we are to
remove ourselves from the world. Rather, we are in the world but not of the
world.
For our Amish and Old Order
Mennonite brothers and sisters this has come to mean shunning the automobile
and electricity. Yet sin has entered their cloisters time and time again in
other forms. Child abuse and sexual assault are not uncommon among these
secluded religious types.
No, denying ourselves cars and
electricity does not result in purity. James points us to our minds and hearts
and tongues and hands. Remember, he said, “Do
not merely listen to the word…Do what is says.” If you do not do what the
Word of God says you are deceiving yourself that you are truly religious. And
by religious I mean “devoted.” Reading and obeying the Word fills our minds and
hearts with the knowledge of what it means to be devoted to God.
In the forests of Northern Europe
lives the ermine, a small animal known best for its snow-white fur.
Instinctively this animal protects its glossy coat of fur with great care lest
it become soiled.
Hunters often capitalize on this
trait. Instead of setting a mechanical trap to catch the ermine, they find its
home in a cleft of a rock or a hollow tree and daub the entrance and the
interior with tar. Then their dogs start the chase, and the frightened ermine
flees toward its home. But finding it covered with filth, he spurns his place
of safety. Rather than soil his white fur, he courageously faces the yelping
dogs who hold him at bay until the hunters capture him. To the ermine, purity
is dearer than life!
To the Christian, purity ought to be
dearer than life. The Word of God, not rules concocted by man, will teach us
how to be morally pure in a depraved world.
Show
me your faith
Doing
good in the name of Jesus will bring few to Christ when others see no inward
transformation in those reaching out to them. At the same time, the most pious,
moral believers who refuse to help the needy of the world will find their
attempts to convince others of Jesus’ love often falling on deaf ears.
We need to stay in the saddle on
this horse.
The old spiritual “Give me that
old-time religion,” written in the 1870s, doesn’t mention Jesus or the gospel
that saves us, but it does have a redeeming verse: After a few rounds of “Give
me that old-time religion,” it swings into “Makes me love everybody…it’s good
enough for me.”
If the outward expression of
religion reflects a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, that’s a good
religion. If it “makes me love everybody,” then it sounds like Jesus has got a
hold of your heart – “For God so loved the world…” And when that core value
gets a grip on your heart you will change your world.
Good and true religion must
incarnate itself into life, not just generally but by specific acts in specific
cases. Pure religion has little to do with ceremonies, temple rituals or
special days. Pure religion means practicing God’s word and sharing it with
others; through speech, service and personal purity.
As Martin Luther said, “The world
does not need a definition of religion but a demonstration of religion.”
“Let
us not love with words (alone) but with actions and in truth,” (1 Jn 3:18).
AMEN
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